Universal mobile telecommunications system (UMTS) is a 3rd generation (3G) asynchronous mobile communication system operating in wideband code division multiple access (WCDMA) based on European systems, global system for mobile communications (GSM) and general packet radio services (GPRS). A long-term evolution (LTE) of UMTS is under discussion by the 3rd generation partnership project (3GPP) that standardized UMTS.
The 3GPP LTE is a technology for enabling high-speed packet communications. Many schemes have been proposed for the LTE objective including those that aim to reduce user and provider costs, improve service quality, and expand and improve coverage and system capacity. The 3GPP LTE requires reduced cost per bit, increased service availability, flexible use of a frequency band, a simple structure, an open interface, and adequate power consumption of a terminal as an upper-level requirement.
Machine-type communication (MTC) is an important revenue stream for operators and has a huge potential from the operator perspective. There are several industry for a working on an efficient machine-to-machine (M2M) system with some industry members developing a new access technology dedicated for MTC. However, it is more efficient for operators to be able to serve MTC user equipment (UE) using already deployed radio access technology. Therefore it is important for operators to understand whether LTE could be a competitive radio access technology for efficient support of MTC. It is envisaged that MTC UE's will be deployed in huge numbers, large enough to create an eco-system on its own. Lowering the cost of MTC UE's is an important enabler for implementation of the concept of “internet of things”. MTC UE's used for many applications will require low operational power consumption and are expected to communicate with infrequent small burst transmissions.
In addition, there is a substantial market for the use cases of devices deployed deep inside buildings which would require coverage enhancement in comparison to the defined LTE cell coverage footprint. Various methods have been discussed for coverage enhancement for MTC UEs.